Building one of the tallest structures in London with Hurley Palmer Flatt and Bluebeam Revu
UK-based multi-disciplinary engineering firm Hurley Palmer Flatt understands the importance of efficient project delivery, as 2018 marks the firm’s fifth decade in the built environment business.
Recently, the firm implemented Bluebeam Revu, the project efficiency and collaboration solution trusted by over 1.4m design and construction professionals worldwide on Principal Place, a residential high-rise project in the Shoreditch area of London, expected to reach 50 storeys.
Modern in build and execution, the project is set to feature 175-metre tall towers offering 300 new residential apartments, a residential campus-structured IP integrated cabling solution, audio visual home automation systems, site-wide security coverage, centralised building services, active network supporting MEP BMS AV and security systems, satellite distribution, as well as telecom utilities planning and coordination.
Given the complexity of the project, Hurley Palmer Flatt turned to Revu to enhance the accuracy and quality of their design reviews, compliance documentation and collaboration, while eliminating time-sensitive processes involving DWG files and costly CAD programs.
Improving efficiency in design review
“What ultimately happened with the introduction and quality of Bluebeam is that we were able to get a suite of drawings out and not have to run them by 2D CAD,” explains senior mechanical engineer, Jairo Jaramillo.
“That saved us using two or three staff members, a couple of hours each. The savings there was definitely in the four figures.”
Sustainability consultant Lucy Rees also sees the improvements brought on by Revu: “It’s particularly useful, during the design stage where we can just annotate documents digitally on a PDF and send it to the architects and engineers, instead of having to print things out and then scan them back in and send them over.”
Bluebeam Studio in Revu allows Jaramillo’s team to mark-up 2D drawings as well as 3D models and share the mark-ups in real-time to both the field and office via digital PDFs.
“Bluebeam has reduced the number of steps and been a massive help with regards to productivity,” adds Jaramillo.
Striving for accuracy
The easy-to-adopt and scale functionality and industry-specific tools in Revu have allowed Jaramillo to expand the use of Revu’s digital solutions to other business critical workflows.
“Our key thing is spatial coordination. So, to be able to do that off a 2D drawing in Bluebeam and complete area calculations; see metres squared, distances, clearances to plant, etc. That is the bread and butter of what we do. And I wasn’t able to do that until I started using Bluebeam. I no longer need to go to DWGs because with Bluebeam, I can check and calibrate the distances,” he says.
Compliance reviews have also seen an upgrade since the firm adopted Revu.
“Bluebeam is particularly useful for us when we’re taking pictures to document compliance, because we can then embed them against the plans and schedules for the project, which means we have a direct link between what we’ve physically seen on-site and what’s in the design plans, to guarantee compliance,” explains Rees.
In addition to that direct link, all document information is now in Revu, making information easier to find than previous multi-document formats.
“Instead of having to have lots of different documents in different places, we just have it in the one that you can see together,” says Rees.
Taking digital PDFs into a paperless future
Hurley Palmer Flatt attributes the digital PDF capabilities of Revu as the key to going paperless. CEO Paul Flatt believes that the future is now for firms like his to take advantage of the digital space: “Buildings have become a digital asset. So, with the evolution of Building Information Modelling (BIM), this digital asset is going to evolve, and I believe that next destination of that digital asset is where you’ll start to see an overlay of information that actually goes onto that digital asset; that’s tagging of information.”
After using Revu to do just that on the Principal Place project, Jaramillo agrees: “PDF is such a recognisable and common format of electronic file. Having the versatility of digital PDFs within Revu has helped Hurley Palmer Flatt to achieve their goals in improving the quality and efficiency of project deliverables.
“At the end of the day, the deliverables that you’re dealing with have to be designed and to do that, you need design tools, elaborates Flatt. Having tools like Bluebeam, they’re key if we’re going to move forward.”
Read the full Hurley Palmer Flatt case study.
Bluebeam Revu
*Please note: this is a commercial profile.
